at home because of a severe headcold.
We have something in common on that day, Bob. I'm rarely ill, but I was down for the count with a severe cold and fever that morning. Called the boss around 6 and went back to bed.
Karen was working at a dialysis clinic at the time on the 04:30 shift. Every chair in the place has a TV and it's packed every morning with folks who need dialysis to live "normal" lives, cleaning their blood for the next day or three, before work.
She rang the home phone and told me to turn on the TV and that some plane appeared to have hit one of the towers. Maybe a Cessna.
I flipped on the TV and said, that wasn't any Cessna that did that. Told her I had it on and would talk later. Headache was killing me. A few minutes later, the first tower fell.
I no longer felt so bad about having a head cold. I knew I had just watched a bunch of people die.
I was the Sr. Ops Engineer for a small company that had grown from one tiny data center to 18 worldwide in a year and a half. Employee #42 for the Hitchhikers fans in the assembled crowd.
There were about 600 of us there.
The dot com bubble was about to burst but we didn't know it quite yet. The Red Herring was printed, the road show was booked, and we were all going to make some real money for all those 70+ hour weeks. Going public, bay-bee.
We watched that day, and all the days of the never ending coverage from every source for months. Why?
October we had our first real vacation in years booked. We went to Cozumel. We met all sorts of people and everyone had a clarity and a realness I haven't seen since. Everyone talked. Everyone listened. Everyone was American.
Nobody was perennially "offended" or taking stupid political sides. We all wanted one thing... Justice for the dead.
In early November, the company announced layoffs. 450 people got our walking papers, me included. Well at least I got that vacation in.
They limped along for years and eventually the owners sold to SunGard. They walked with $3M each. They started another data center company.
We had just bought our second home, the first that wasn't a condo or apartment, in August.
I struggled to find a job for many many months.
Funny thing months later: Apparently a website called f___edcompany.com was a "thing" after all the dot bombs crashed and people spent a lot of time on there bitching about their former employers. At one point I got a phone call from a friend: "Oh my god! Was that you on FC, dude?!"
Hmm. Ummm. What is this FC? I learned. I logged in anonymously and read the stories. I laughed. Nope. Wasn't me. But yeah, I remember all of that ****. I don't have any reason to air all that dirty laundry or burn any bridges in this biz. I suspect that post is from, X. He knew all that stuff too and he's still really angry, but I don't know. I haven't kept in touch with him.
Didn't work for 11 months. It was surreal.
I have a work ethic and it messed with my head. Did a lot of volunteering but it doesn't pay the bills. Whether smart or not, I never took a dime of unemployment. Tightened the belt and things got pretty nerve wracking fiscally, but spent from savings when we had to. Spent way too much time in a bathrobe and watching TV.
Maybe I needed it after about killing myself for a startup that self-destructed overnight.
Eventually a friend called and said it wasn't great but they could use a sysadmin part-time. Went. Worked.
Worked my way back to senior positions at various places, and back into and out again from the black hole the sucks everyone back, telecom.
Got my Extra Class ham license out of sheer boredom during the time off.
Had a good friend who worked at the debris pile three days after the towers fell. He still has his boots from that day.
But hey. I got a year off work and we all got DHS and TSA from the deal. Just spiffy.
Decided I was glad we had decided to be debt free other than the mortgage back then, and decided this next go around we'd make sure debt free meant the mortgage too.
Got it done. Bought into an airplane. Got back to flying. Still work too much for people that really don't deserve it. Should stop doing that one of these days. Kinda like the paycheck paying for the airplane.
Bought a hangar. Putting up a 60' ham tower this year.
Dad passed a few years ago. He mineswept the Suez Canal in the early 70s. Nothing changes in that hell hole region of the planet.
The country is already back to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders horse crap and the 11th isn't even over yet here.
Maybe go flying this weekend.